No more lies
From the Neighbourhood letter, December 2023, by Birds WG
We underestimate the damage that lies can do to our health and well-being. Whenever I have a health problem or I am suffering mentally or emotionally, I ask myself: what is the lie I am telling myself or others?
Lying is a big obstacle for awareness and connection and it can stop us from moving towards the direction of the things that we desire. Prolonged lying can lead to ill-health and suffering. Old lies that remain without investigation can create a leakage in our energy system.
There are different types of lying. I list here the biggest three categories, from the least dangerous to the most dangerous.
Intentional lies
We lie to others intentionally because the alternative does not feel safe to us or the other person. These types of lies are quite innocent when used punctually, if, for example, you are trying to reject a stranger at a bar who is flirting with you very aggressively by telling them that you have a partner who is about to arrive at any minute. Those are lies that we say consciously and intentionally and we can justify the necessity for them to ourselves. Usually they do not cause a lot of guilt and this is the reason why they are quite harmless. Nevertheless, those types of lies can also become detrimental to our health if they are repetitive and prolonged in time (for example if we live in a homophobic town and we pretend our whole lives that we are not gay).
White lies
We are not saying a lie but we are omitting the truth or part of the truth. We do this most commonly when we feel too guilty to lie but we are also too afraid of the consequences of the whole truth. White lies, if you have to tell them very often, are a red flag that you are leading a double life, which is almost always a recipe for disaster, mostly because the amount of guilt that we need to digest daily is not energetically sustainable.
The lies we tell ourselves
They are the most dangerous of all. They make us stay in intimate relationships that hurt us, pursue jobs that we do not like, and generally do things we do not want to do. They are the source of burn-out and misery. They are detrimental to self-love, to creativity, to connection, and to our sense of integrity. It takes a lifetime, and a lot of effort, to become so aware of who we are, what our needs are, how our needs change, and what our traumas are (and our subsequent trauma responses). Ideally, if we were absolutely aware of all of the above, situations in which we would have to lie would be very rare and, even then, the lying would be intentional and mostly guilt free. But it is part of the human condition to always be a bit flawed when it comes to self-awareness and, because of that, we must also be compassionate with ourselves when we are caught in a lie. We can always go back, when we later realise our lie, and correct it by coming clean to the person we have lied to or to ourselves. To do so, is an act of courage and of great vulnerability. It requires that we are compassionate with ourselves. What is more, afterwards, we do not need to give any promises that we will not do it again. Chances are that we will. What is helpful to do though, is to identify and bookmark the reason behind our lie: Were we too eager to please? Were we desperate to be liked? Were we afraid we will not get what we want? The reason behind lying is always associated with trauma. Working on the reasons for lying not only stops the lying but it also begins to heal the trauma. Trauma is an open wound, an energetic hole through which enormous amounts of energy (physical, emotional, mental, & spiritual) disappear into a void, leaving us weak, depleted, burned-out. Lying is not only a blow to our integrity, it is also a blow to our energy supplies. Lying is in many ways the most common mechanism to mask and cover up trauma. It is a patch to a wound which, if left hidden and untreated, it will begin to rot and infect the whole organism. We never think of this, of how many of our ailments and sufferings might be attributed to the lies that we tell to others, and, most detrimentally and much more often, to the lies that we tell to ourselves.
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